Breaking Up With My Scale During Eating Disorder Recovery

Editor’s note: If you live with an eating disorder, the following post could be potentially triggering. You can contact the Crisis Text Line by texting “NEDA” to 741-741.

Hey Scale,

I refuse to start this letter with the traditional “dear,” because you are not dear to me any longer. The truth is, regardless of what I thought sometimes, you were never really dear to me. You were like words of approval from an abuser to a victim, because that is what you were — a tool my abuser, my eating disorder, used to manipulate me.

I thought the information you were giving me was not only reassurance I was fine, but a gold star saying I was doing great. You were like the sticker chart my parents used to get me to do chores, except instead of a chore completed it was a pound lost. It is symbolic, really.

You are sneaky, Scale, because you were a tool this disease used to manipulate me. What I know now is the lies you and my eating disorder both fed me could have killed me. Those lies blinded me to the reality I was getting sicker by the day and ever more entangled in the web this monster weaves.

You, Scale, are not a living thing. You have no brain or consciences or soul. You are pieces of metal and plastic, so I find it hard to be mad at you when the truth is I am the one who gave you all the power. But that is over. This is it. I’m taking my power back and I will find other ways of measuring my self-worth. Real ways of measuring the life in each day. Gone are your days of counting in pounds, in bones and in clothing sizes. I see the tricks. I can hear the lies, so your time of controlling my life is done and now we say goodbye.

My name is Jess. I’m a twenty-something young professional trying to figure this thing called life and this process called recovery out. It’s messy. I can’t do it perfectly and I can’t do it alone. This is my story.